13 Colonies

13 Colonies - Page Text Content

FC: The Original Thirteen Colonies | By | Jade Hayslip-Leo

2: King Charles I was against the Puritan religion, so the Puritans moved to what we call Massachusetts Bay. | However, the Puritans were a very strict religious group, and even a petty offense of not showing up to church masses were punishable by a day in the stocks. | New England

3: The Puritans did not have a good relationship with the nearby Indians, eventually outbursting into what is known as King Phillip's War. | People of New England had a much different lifestyle than the other colonies. Their lives revolved around the town, where people traded, had meetings, grew profits (cattle, corn, squash, etc.), and most importantly, where Sunday Masses were held.

4: Peter Stuyvesant was governor of New Amsterdam when the English took over the Dutch colony without a fight. King Charles II named the colony after his brother, the Duke of York. The Duke, however, thought that New York was too big, so he gave the land to Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret. They then divided the land into East and West jersey. However, Jersey soon became a royal colony and was re-named New Jersey | The Middle Colonies

5: In the Middle Colonies, people revolved around cash crops in the farming land and skilled artisans in the cities. This lifestyle was adopted by the Pennsylvanians. Pennsylvania was founded by a Quaker named William Penn. He bought the land hoping to have a land were people were free of persecution and the soil was rich.

6: Cecil Calvert, also known as Lord Baltimore was the son of a Catholic man named Sir George Calvert, who passed on the newly bought land named Maryland. His father wanted a colony where Christians could practice freely, for England was a Protestant nation where Catholics were persecuted. However, Lord Baltimore allowed Protestants to move into Maryland, but soon passed the Act of Toleration, which protected Catholics from discrimination, in fear of a Protestant uprising. | After Maryland was settled years ago, King Charles II granted land to eight nobles which they divided into two. In the north, people were poor tobacco farmers who came from Virginia. The land became known as North Carolina. In the south, the nobles set a much larger and profitable town. Many people were settlers from Barbados.

7: The South was also divided into two different ways of life. Tidewater plantations were large farms growing cash crops run by white people, worked by slaves. The backcountry was home to poor private farmers. | In most plantations, slaves were the main force. They kept a white man's life running. However, as more people and more demand for free labor came, so did the demand for slaves. Africans were forcefully taken from their homes and across the Atlantic Ocean in a path called the "Middle Passage". Every year, more and more slaves kept coming and were forced to work because of their skin color.

8: England was strict in terms of trading, for they believed that if they had complete control of a trade, then they would have more money and power. | In the colonies, people had a lifestyle and government similar to our current one. They had legislature (representative officials) and governors. People were also divided into different classes: gentry, middle class, and indentured servants/slaves. | They colonist, however, were still ruled and controlled by the British crown. The British had strict control over their trade and taxed them heavily. They also didn't have a say in their government.

9: The Great Awakening was a time when the colonies started question religion and their rulings. Churches were separating and people became more religiously tolerant. Along with the religious uprising came a time called the Enlightenment. They Enlightenment was when people started try to find out the laws of nature and humans. Benjamin Franklin is a good colonial example. He spread new ideas not based on religion/Bible. He spread ideas learned through experimentation and scientific ideas. The colonists' daily life became more focused on new ideas and science rather than God and Christianity. | In modern times, we take advantage of the good schools we have today, unlike the children in the colonies, who only if you lived in Massachusetts, the first colony to have public schools (for boys) and dame schools (for girls). It wasn't as fortunate for others in the other two colonies. Only rich people could send their children to school. In the Southern colonies, most rich people had tutors instead!